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1 " ...and you drink a little too much and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and think, 'That was fine'. And your life is a long line of fine. "
― Gillian Flynn , Gone Girl
2 " My mother used to say that rain here pours like a blessing, like a thick veil that parts to reveal the bride's face. But nearly every day, when this rain parted, it revealed a long line of soldiers, like you, like death, marching toward us, and we would scatter with a practiced silence and hide. "
― , I Live Here
3 " The novel was born with the Modern Era, which made man, to quote Heidegger, the " only real subject," the ground for everything. It is largely through the novel that man as an individual was established on the European scene. Away from the novel, in our real lives, we know very little about our parents as they were before our birth; we have only fragmentary knowledge of the people close to us: we see them come and go and scarcely have they vanished than their place is taken over by others: they form a long line of replaceable beings. Only the novel separates out an individual, trains a light on his biography, his ideas, his feelings, makes him irreplaceable: makes him the center of everything. "
4 " Harry Potter is one boy in a long line of mythical heroes who have reminded the human race that we are so much more than we think we are, so much more powerful than we seem to know. Jesus said that we would someday do even greater works than He; should we not take Him at His word? And should not 'someday' be today? It's time for us to start working miracles, if indeed we have the capacity within us to do so. "
― Marianne Williamson , Everyday Grace: Having Hope, Finding Forgiveness And Making Miracles
5 " If girls can be anything, let them be anything. This is a book for any girl who ever felt she didn't fit in. You are not alone. You come from a long line of bold, strong, fearless women. Glory in that. This is a book for anyone who ever underestimated a girl. "
6 " Years later, as a professor, Martin would try to find the words to articulate the power of togetherness in a world where togetherness had been corrupted -- and to explore the effect of the music, the surprising lengths the people had gone to to hear it and to play it, as evidence that music, and art in general, are basic requirements of the human soul. Not a luxury but a compulsion. He will think of it every time he goes to a museum or a concert or a play with a long line of people waiting to get inside. "
― Jessica Shattuck , The Women in the Castle
7 " (Regarding check-cashing places):It's hitting me how poor this really is: I'm standing in a long line to pay someone to give me my pay. So, technically, they get paid before I do, and it's my damn check. "
― Angela Nissel , The Broke Diaries
8 " He sat staring before him, seeing nothing but a long line of Mortimers, inexhaustable and prolific to the end of time. "
― Edith Pargeter , A Bloody Field by Shrewsbury
9 " It will all work out, Inas. You come from a long line of survivors and strong women. So everything will be fine in the end. And we are always with you in spirit, to guide you and love you. "
― Zack Love , The Syrian Virgin (The Syrian Virgin #1)
10 " Tom thought back to the imposing, empty house: to the silence that deadened every room with a subtly different pitch; to the kitchen smelling of carbolic, kept spotless by a long line of housekeepers. He remembered that dreaded smell of Lux flakes, and his distress as he saw the handkerchief, washed and starched by Mrs Someone-or-other, who had discovered it in the pocket of his shorts and laundered it as a matter of course, obliterating his mother’s smell. He had searched the house for some corner, some cupboard which could bring back that blurry sweetness of her. But even in what had been her bedroom, there was only polish, and mothballs, as though her ghost had finally been exorcised. "
― M.L. Stedman , The Light Between Oceans
11 " Now that we've come up with all the obvious answers to our problem, it's time to come up with some truly ridiculous ones." " Ridiculous?" asked Brasque." Yes, ridiculous. Think of something impossible, improbable or downright ridiculous and go from there." " Like we all flap our arms and fly out of here," said Katherine." Exactly!" said Spider." How about we form a long line all the way to the mountains and pass the charges along it?" said Brasque." Excellent," said Spider. " Keep it coming." " What if we each carry one charge, run back, carry another, and so on?" said Tom, getting into the swing of things." Lovely!" laughed Spider. " Now we're cooking." The shower of sparks shot out of the top of the Amadragon. Joe shielded his eyes with his hand." Yeah, and we can all climb on the Amadragon and ride out of here," he said." What was that, Joe?" said Spider, suddenly dropping the jokey manner. " What's the Amadragon?" Katherine's eyes glittered. " He means that," she said, pointing at the excavator. Everyone except Spider turned and looked. " He's talking about the giant machine, the one that keeps shooting sparks in the air." Spider cocked his ear and listened to the rumble of the Amadragon's engine. " So Orlemann built the dragon, did he?" he said. " I'd been wondering what the noise was. If they built it to the original specifications, it should get us out of here within an hour. Let's pray that will give us enough time! "
12 " You must read to lead. Reading feeds. It opens our souls to a long line of counselors. "
― Dave Harvey , Am I Called?: The Summons to Pastoral Ministry
13 " Healing was a terrifying and painful experience and my life was as full of struggle and heartache as it had always been. Several years after I started therapy, I began to feel happy. I was stunned. I hadn't realized that the point of all this work on myself was to feel good. I thought it was just one more struggle in a long line of struggles. It took a while before I got used to the idea that my life had changed, that I felt happy, that I was actually content. Learning to tolerate feeling good is one of the nicest parts of healing. "
― Ellen Bass , The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse
14 " There came a time in my life when I had to admit to myself that I have some very clear narcissistic tendencies. Ironically, it occurred during the writing of my book The Emotionally Abused Woman. As I listed the symptoms of narcissism, I was amazed to find that I recognized myself in the description of the disorder.It should have been no surprise to me because I come from a long line of narcissists. My mother and several of her brothers suffered from the disorder, as did her mother. For some reason, though, I imagined that I’d escaped our family curse. I should have known that it’s not that easy to. "
― Beverly Engel , Jekyll and Hyde Syndrome
15 " The bee has round it a mysterious inscription, which has been variously interpreted. It contains an allusion to beeswax, and one scholar has suggested that the tesserae were druggists’ tokens for the purpose of advertising the sale of beeswax. Another explanation is that the inscription might be one of the mysterious magic formulae used as charms, and that the tokens might be charms to call the bees home when swarming; but the most plausible solution seems to be that the tesserae were connected with the secret rites of Artemis, especially as the stag of the goddess is the one on the reverse side of the tokens.One of the most important animals connected with the worship of the Asiatic Great-Mother was the lion, and it is a curious fact that we often find a connection between bees and lions. At the old Hittite town of Carchemish behind her a long line of priestesses bearing various articles. We do not suggest that these were called Melissae, but in the jewellry we see how the goddess with her lions merges in or is connected with the ‘Bee-goddess. "
16 " He was one of a long line of mimsy and embittered middle-class sensitives who disguised their feeble and decadent lust as something spiritual and Socratic. And why not? If it meant he had to end his days on some Mediterranean island writing lyric prose for Faber and Faber and literary criticism for the New Statesman, running through successions of houseboys and 'secretaries', getting sloshed on Fernet Branca and having to pay off the Chief of Police every six months, then so be it. Better than driving to the office in the rain. "
― , The Liar
17 " I come from a long line of body snatchers, probably the top-notch body snatchers in America. No make that the world. Some people might think it's gross digging up bones or corpses, but who asked them? It's no big deal, but then I've been doing it since I got out of diapers. "
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18 " They were our enemies. Yet in those young men of Italy I'd seen something centuries old. An American is only as old as his years. A long line of something was hidden behind the bright eyes of those Italians. And then and there I decided to learn something of the modern world. There was something abroad which we Americans couldn't or wouldn't understand. But unless we made some attempt to realize that everyone in the world isn't American, and that not everything American is good, we'll all perish together, and in this twentieth century.... "
― John Horne Burns , The Gallery
19 " Dad was thirsty, not given to great displays of affection, like his father and his father's father before him. A long line of self-indulgent men who couldn't give love but lived to take it, which isn't the same as receiving it. They were all in so much pain and that's always the perfect excuse. "
― Courtney Summers , All the Rage
20 " Every novel is brand-new. It’s never been written before in the history of the world. At the same time, it’s merely the latest in a long line of narratives—not just novels, but narratives generally—since humans began telling stories to themselves and each other. "
― Thomas C. Foster , How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form